


Held illimitable dominion over all

by seraphim_grace



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, characters trapped in spell, dream quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-12
Updated: 2010-04-12
Packaged: 2017-10-08 21:55:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphim_grace/pseuds/seraphim_grace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never step into a fairy circle</p>
            </blockquote>





	Held illimitable dominion over all

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Muffaletta for Help-Haiti](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Muffaletta+for+Help-Haiti).



Dean arches his back, pushing his shoulders into the soft grass and soil and Castiel's hot dry hands. He tries to catch the strange noise in his throat but it escapes anyway. Castiel grins, shark like and predatory. Dean throws one hand over his eyes as if it might help him contain what's going through him, as the sun beats down on his skin, hot and patient and as relentless as Castiel's gaze. He pulls up his heel, scuffing the grass and pulling a divot under his knee with his bare foot and Castiel laughs, mischievous and dark.

It's funny how this has become the routine of their lives here.

It hadn't always been like this.

Dean doesn't care, not anymore. He doesn't know how long they've been here, in this lawless place between. He doesn't care that outside the world waits, poised, because here and now all that matters is the twist on Castel's mouth as he laughs.

Castiel never laughed before.

Castiel's hands were never so proprietary, they never touched- let alone to claim.

Dean never knew how good it was to be claimed, to be so cared for, and to let Castiel make those decisions for him. To let Castiel possess him in this way- to own him.

It wasn't always like this.

And now Castiel plays him like a bodhrán, nestled in the crook of his arm, the cipin darting back and forth to create the rhythm that he makes Dean's heart beat.

He sustains that cadence with finger tips played across skin, thumbs dragging under the crease of muscle at abdomen, over towards navel and the spackling of golden hairs, shining in the sunlight.

This is his art, trained over months to know exactly the beat to play on his instrument and Dean just arches and reaches and stretches and gives and gives and gives.

It hadn't always been like this.

***

"No other wise man  
Could take the hurt like you do  
Ooh the pain like you  
Putting on a brave face  
But it gets to you somehow  
Ooh gets through somehow  
You hold your head in your hands  
And the weight of the world on your shoulders"

Dean turns off the radio in disgust, "come on baby, you don't normally let me down like this, I know the roads suck, but surely there's something a little less synthy on," he pushes the auto dial on the car stereo and looks at Sam, head back snoring, sprawled out in the front seat, pushed back as far as it can go for his super long legs.

He's making a sound like a chainsaw ripping through swamp muck and Dean has long since become immune to it, but there is the urge to hang a spoon on his nose. Dean even wonders if he'd be a good brother if he didn't.

The radio blares out a couple of some country thing and Dean doesn't hesitate at all shifting it to the next station. "Come on, baby, we're almost there," he's almost whining, "I know these roads suck, but there's got to be some decent music somewhere in this state, even with all the flannel."

Louisiana is lush and green, the sun hot and white and the cloudy sky is the colour of curdled milk. There is a golden sand colour to the soil around the road side, and a pair of kids are playing tag amongst the fences, summer bright colours and coffee black skin. The impala slides along the road like tar, purring like a caracal. It would be picturesque if not for the blast of crappy country music and the gloopy wet sound of Sam's snoring.

White lake comes closer with every mile and every elongated flannel covered country syllable on the radio.

It had always been like this.

***

The sun is on the back of his neck like a bludgeon and the hard ground beneath his feet have at least packed the cuts with grit and dust. His tongue feels like something alien in his mouth, swollen and dry, and his lips are cracked. In the back of Sam's head is the strange fact that without water a person will die in twenty hours in the Sahara. He laughs at a sky the colour of cardboard, at the never ending swathe of dry ground and scrub. He laughs at the glory of it all.

It is the third day.

It hadn't always been like this.

***

"So," Sam says unfolding himself from the car. It's an amazing feat that sometimes still catches Dean unawares, it's like watching one of those giant spiders climb out of a really tiny hole. He then shakes out his jacket with a practised flip and his hair like a golden retriever. "This is the haunted house."

To be fair it looks like it should be haunted. An avenue of bald cypresses lead up to an old antebellum mansion half sunk into it's own cellars. It reminds Dean of those Ripley's believe it or not houses. It must be standing at thirty degrees. "Apparently that's it."

There is a sunburst over the ruined gates, half covered in ivy and wisteria.

"Party sounds," Dean jokes, "must be the spirits level."

Sam rewards him with bitchface number two, the one that he uses for when Dean does something stupid. Number one he saves for moments of supreme idiocy and implies he can't tie his own laces and that's why he wears slip on boots. "You wanted an easy job, haunted parties, missing people, anything else you wanted on this job?"

"Strippers?" Dean asks blithely, because he does so enjoy needling his brother, it's one of his few true joys in life.

"Classy," Sam continues, "how about you check out the grounds and I'll go over the house with the EMF?"

"If you're sure, nature boy." Dean grins at him and Sam does that irritated flick of the head even though they're both pretty sure this hunt is a waste, but they were in the area and missing people are worth their time, even if it's just a day tramping through the woods and saying this aint our kinda job.

So Dean turns to go back into the overgrown trees, there are bushes as high as his waist with brambles and other thorny things making him glad of his jeans, when his foot catches something. "Hey, Sammy," he calls over, clearing the undergrowth from the small stone, "look at this."

It's a small stone marker, perhaps knee high, carved with swirls and circles. There is a grotesque face, like a gargoyle, straining as if it can push itself out of the stone.

"There's another one," Sam says, crouching down to clear away the other so it stands half erect from the shrubbery.

"That is unusual." Castiel says, appearing out of nowhere.

Dean jumps in fright, "that's it, dude, I am getting you a bell."

Sam laughs, but doesn't turn around, just pushes more of the vines and undergrowth away from the stone. "Hey, weren't these in Pan's Labyrinth?" he asks.

Dean looks over, "no, they were taller." He says, "this is more Spirited Away."

Sam does that blinking thing he saves for when Dean surprises him, "What, I read," Dean protests but mostly it's to needle Sam. Sam can and has slept through anything and you find the weirdest shit on motel pay per view to watch at three in the morning, Dean knows. And if it's subtitled he doesn't have to turn on the sound.

"Those were god stones." Castiel agrees. He had watched part of that movie with Dean after simply appearing to chide him for not sleeping, or at least not trying. Castiel has been doing a lot of stuff like that lately.

"and these?" Sam asks.

"Mile markers probably." Dean brushes him off.

Nevertheless Sam takes out his cell and snaps photos of them quickly, "Bobby is always asking me for photos of you." He answers with that same shit eating grin that Dean uses.

"Ha de fucking ha ha." Dean answers, "that must mean that one is you. Come on, fly boy, lets go explore the grounds."

That is the last time Sam sees his brother or the angel.

It had always been like this.

***

The chocolate melts slowly on Dean's tongue, revealing the other tastes, the tart raspberry, the spicy hot chili, the brutal mint. He is even aware of the other taste, the feel of Castiel's saliva at the side of his mouth where he had wetly licked him.

The tightness of the blindfold only reflects and doesn't hinder. He sees flavours. Smells sounds. Arched back in the Louisiana grass, feet bent and Castiel there: There; THERE.

A stubbled cheek running the length of inner thigh, the soft wet exhalation parting the curls under his cock, but no pressure, no want, no need, just there. And sun, and grass, and the sweet smell of the lawn and the damp soil and Castiel, musky, sweet, and salty sour and the rush of it all and the need and the contradiction; the way it falls into itself in a sky the colour of opals and the whisper of the Spanish moss whirligigging in the breeze as it reaches for the labyrinthine branches of the local trees.

He can hear Ondine's laughter, high and clear carried on the breeze with the clink of glasses from the house.

But Dean can't see that, he can hear and he can smell and he can taste, chocolate lingering on his tongue with bitter dark coffee grounds overwhelming the other flavours now. He can feel Castiel's warmth between his thighs, leaning over him but not touching. And he can feel loved.

It hadn't always been like this.

***

The three girls look like they've stepped out of a movie or a pop video, that one about being French or something that was only worth watching because the girls were hot and really very scantily clad.

Each of them has their hair elaborately styled high and is wearing extreme corsetry over which they almost pour. There are large fine jewels and the fabric they are wearing shines in the sunlight. "Oh" one of them exudes leaning forward and batting her feather fan against her breasts, "new boys."

"Well, sorry, girls," Dean says grinning, "I think we've got a little turned around."

"Oh you can't leave," the second one says, she has a sort of milky coffee colour to her skin and is wearing a pale pink. Her stockings reveal a flash of golden thigh. She has eyes like chocolate and a pink feather in her hair.

"We can't hold them." The one in grey says and her voice is a breathy whisper of sex. "We can help them, they'll need string."

"And breadcrumbs,"

"And paper."

"They can make a map."

There was something about them that strikes Dean about them being the girls from the Mikado, he's almost waiting on them performing a lurid and rather lewd version of "three little girls from school."

"look," Dean says and puts his hand on Castiel's forearm, suddenly jealous of these three girls even being near him. "We can find our own way back."

"Of course you can," the one in grey laughs, as if she doesn't believe him. "And we'll be waiting."

The two of them tramp through the woods until it gets dark but time and time again end up back at the avenue leading to the house, and the house is different, set straight and freshly painted.

"Dean," Castiel says finally, "I feel strange."

"Strange?" Dean panics, "strange how?"

"Heavy." Castiel answers, "I feel heavy."

"All the more reason to get out of this place." Dean says and Castiel agrees following behind, always behind.

It had always been this way.

***

The sun is relentless, there hasn't been so much as a cloud in the milky sky for three days and he's sure it's not just the peyote that's caused it. There is a tree and from it hangs a noose, he knows it's not a sign of civilisation merely an offer. He doesn't have to finish this. He doesn't have to turn back.

He's gone too far. Dean went to Hell for him, this is nothing in comparison. But he's tired, he's stopped sweating which he knows is a bad sign and everything tastes of dust and salt.

The water is long gone and if he doesn't find what he needs today he's going to die out here.

He doesn't care, not anymore, perhaps the sun has baked his brains but he just laughs at the lunacy of it, his mouth splitting but there is no blood.

He measures his footfalls, heavy, leaden now, to the beat of a song in his head that he can't remember the words of. He just knows that it's one of Dean's.

This is the third day.

It hadn't always been like this.

***

"You sure he didn't just go for a walk?" Bobby asks down the phone.

"Yeah, the car's still here," Sam tells him pacing back and forth. "I can't get him on his cell, or Castiel, it's just ringing off, and it's been seven hours." The sun is starting to set over the awry house. A coalescence of bountiful colours over a house left to wrack and ruin. It looks almost like a picture postcard.

"So, you boys went to investigate a haunted house with a history of mysterious disappearances," Bobby begins, "and one of you goes missing, you idjits have the devil's own luck, god knows it's evil enough. Now what have you got?"

"There's these odd stones," Sam starts.

"Okay, now take a deep breath. I want you to count the stones and see what shape they take." It's a good job that someone is calm because Sam's not thinking straight just yet. All he knows is that Dean is gone; Gone; GONE!

It hangs over him like a pall.

"I took a photo," Sam exults. "I can send you the photo."

"You do that, boy, and I'm on my way, we'll find him, but ya sure that he's not just in the motel?"

"Thanks, Bobby." Sam can't keep the relief from his voice as he ends the call. He has searched these woods and grounds over and over and can find nothing, not even a foot print. Dean was always better at this, and he wouldn't leave the car behind.

He wouldn't go without saying, would he? He wouldn't just vanish, but all Sam can think is that he did and maybe it would be a sort of justice if Dean did too.

He just takes a deep breath and starts to count the markers.

In total there are thirty nine. He knows it's important, he just doesn't know why and doesn't want to leave the area long enough to find a wifi hotspot and look it up.

***

Castiel lifts Dean's foot up, placing it over his shoulder, so that the knee is beside his mouth, and he bites into the soft skin and Dean mewls. "Shush," Castiel murmurs as he lifts the other foot. He places his hands in the curve of his back. "I'm here," he says softly into the paper skin of Dean's thigh. "I'm here."

***

When they find the house in the wood for what might be the tenth time a dining table has been laid out on the lawn of the avenue. There are six ladies in wonderful gowns, their hair elaborately dressed. Four men sit between them. There are glass lanterns strung from coloured ropes in a canopy over them, and two empty chairs.

The smells coming from the table are enough to make Dean's mouth water.

"Will you gentlemen join us?" One of the men asks, proffering a wine glass. "The house Desolay Levon," his accent drips like molasses as he speak, "will always provide. You can always resume searching for an exit in the morning."

"Look," Dean begins.

"You must be hungry," the red headed woman says pouring a glass of crystal clear water, "and the food is here. We will not force you, but there are empty chairs at the table and you may leave as soon as you can."

"you're all awfully blase about this," Dean is snarky, fighting something. He just wants to go from this strange place.

"You cannot leave," one of the men says, "but we will not stop you trying."

"Are you holding us prisoner here?"

A man in blue velvet and silver satin laughs loud and long. "We are all prisoners here," he says and lifts his silverware to begin his meal. It is a lush spread of cold meats and fruit with different types of bread and cheese. "The sooner you realise that the easier it is to accept this. The house will provide."

Castiel's stomach growls as a woman in white opens a tureen and the smell of the sauce ripples out, slipping like fog around them. "You have hungers," she says and it sounds almost formal. "We are not keeping you here, the house is, but there is no need to suffer. Come, sit and eat, there is a bed for you in the house and you continue tomorrow."

"We all try to escape at first." This girl is wearing a lavender pearl colour and her skin is as white as milk under the lit lanterns. "But the house holds us here. We entered the magic of our own will, even if we did not know. Did you never just wish for time?"

Dean is speechless.

Castiel's stomach speaks for him with a second loud growl. The woman smiles. "Come, sit, eat," she says, "I am Ondine, and you are welcome amongst us." She has eyes like rock pools, clear and fluttering. They go around the table introducing themselves.

"We have but one rule here, that you must abide by for however long you stay." One of the men, Charles, says, "nothing against another's will. Other than that," he grins, viper sharp and cruel, "you will see things here you have never seen. We are prisoners here, but the house Desolay Levon," he says the name specifically, "will reveal your darkest desires and satisfy them."

"There is no death here," one of the other girls, Lunette, whose hair was a powdered grey, said softly "no law, no time. We are prisoners here, but there is no reason not to eat."

The stew Dean notices as he dips the bread into it, he chose the loaf at random, is rich and thick, and the wine leaves a gritty sediment in the glass when he empties it.

It had always been like this.

***

Sam doesn't know how he missed the stone until he stumbles over it, the pain is liberating and he knows that he has broken some of the bones in his foot as he does so. It's the first time he actually looks at them since this has begun, since he walked into the desert, he has lost some of the nails and the skin is dust brown and solid. There are great ravines filled with dust and dried blood.

He mutters a curse under his breath and continues despite the pain. It's too late to turn back now.

It's the third day.

It hadn't always been like this.

***

There are twenty seven stones in all, in nine groups of three. Each group forms a circle and there is a basic circumfrence of the stones. Each of them has a face and they are all pointed to the centre of each.

Sam has counted them twice and photographed them all. He has drawn a quick map of the area and drawn them upon it. Bobby has made him go back to the motel that he had booked in with Dean, because if Dean's coming back that's where he'll expect Sam to be.

Sam pins the makeshift map to the wall in the hope that they find something, anything, in the way that they're arranged.

When he doesn't he starts to pace.

He orders food but can't eat it.

Dean doesn't run away, not Dean.

It had always been like this.

***

Dean is crying. He's not sure when it started or how, but his cheeks are hot and wet and it's just so natural to let Castiel fold him into his arms. "I'm here," the angel murmurs, and Dean just lets himself dissolve, naked and grass stained into those arms, that voice, and does not question that Castiel does not remove the blindfold.

It's strange how much safer it feels. He feels contained, enclosed. His world is Castiel, and he's happy.

He can't stop crying and Castiel doesn't try to stop him, just murmurs "I'm here, I'm here," and it's all that Dean needs to hear.

***

The bed is almost sinfully comfortable, and Dean's not quite sure when he and Castiel found it, and why Castiel is sharing his bed when the house is clearly massive enough to give them both a room. Apart from the stale garlic on Castiel's breath he doesn't mind.

What is up with that, Castiel says he can't just bampf out, he says he feels heavy, he had to eat, and when he did he ate copiously, and then Dean wakes up next to him.

Castiel has stolen the blankets, wrapped them around himself like a cocoon and his breath is hot, wine stale and foul, against his neck. Dean just burrows in further against the warmth and the sun falling through the gaps in the shutters over the windows and thinks "I don't have to get up," because sure he might be trapped in some strange place where he can't find his way out but Sam will be on it and a few hours, a few precious dreamless hours, are worth the risk. Surely the universe won't begrudge him that.

***

It's starting to get dark. Sam has entered that magic hour where the heat is bearable before it slips into the subzero desert night. He scratches at his bare crotch, pretty sure that some insect has made it's home there. He hasn't needed to piss in two days, but yet the hair there itches.

This is the last day, Sam thinks, if I don't find him now I'm going to die out here, I've given it all Dean, all of it, and I'm sorry, and Dean's mostly forgotten song is going dum dum dum in his head and he matches his steps to it.

He doesn't stop walking.

It's the third day.

It hadn't always been like this.

***

Bobby had a new converted truck with hand paddles, and although he could get into it on his own, he couldn't quite manage getting back out. So he double beeps the horn and Sam goes out to take the spare chair from the back seat and help him into it. Bobby hates it. Bobby is starting to look old, Sam thinks, and then panics, because he can't bear the concept of losing them both.

It sticks in the back of his throat like a planet sized lump. "Let's see what this idjit brother of yours has gotten himself into this time, I can't say I can just drop everything and run across the country any more."

"No, Bobby," Sam agrees and doesn't offer to push him because Bobby hates that. And Bobby continues, about how he's only hear because Sam sounded so worried down the phone, because of course Bobby doesn't worry himself, "yes, bobby," Sam says mechanically, and Bobby chuckles low under his breath as he asks Sam a question. "Yes, Bobby," Sam answers and Bobby calls him an idjit and tells him to pay attention. Inside Sam knows Dean is the favourite, and wonders, almost to himself if Bobby would have driven all this way for him.

 

The motel has no wheelchair access and Sam's just glad that they booked a room on the ground floor. He has printed off the photos of the stones at the library whilst waiting for Bobby to arrive and pinned them up around the room in the same clusters that they are in around the old house. He had hoped that they would inspire him. He's even added a photo of the house and it's old sign. "Well, I'll be," Bobby says as he parks himself in front of the wall, "I always thought it was a myth."

"What is?" Sam asks from the small kitchenette where he is making fresh coffee.

"La Maison de Soleil Levant," Bobby says softly, there is reverence in his voice, "the house of the rising sun."

Sam looks at it again, he looks at the sign with it's sunburst set in cast iron and goes "oh," because of course he knows the song. It's hard to get away from it. "Does it mean anything?"

"not unless yer sweetheart was a gambling man," Bobby answers, and then takes the offered mug of coffee. "I'm guessing," he says, "I'll have to check, but that looks like a fairy circle to me."

"Fairies?" Sam asks, "I didn't think they were real." It seems so surreal, but everything else is real why shouldn't this be.

"If it is," Bobby says soberly, looking into the cup, "it's out of our paygrade. We'll need to find someone else to help us."

It had always been like this.

***

The tin bath sits in front of the fire, Castiel's back against the metal and Dean, open and blindfolded is leaning against him. From downstairs there is music drifting under the door. The water is scented with antiseptic lavender and softening lily.

They are long past the point of questioning where these things come from. The house provides.

Castiel softly kisses the taut skin of Dean's neck. "How do you feel?"

Dean is silent for long moments, listening to the violin play downstairs, the sharp peals of laughter and the groans that always accompany them. "Safe," he answers and it's the absolute truth. He feels safe in this place, with Castiel.

The music is soft and lingering. The water hot and soothing. Dean's skin is golden, the muscles calm under Castiel's hand. Castiel loves to feel them twitch and pull under his palm.  
Dean is normally as skittish as a wild animal, but now, after the tears is soft and pliable.

He is calm.

It hadn't always been like this.

Dean is a wild animal, flighty, broken, quick to flee, but he lies calm in the hot water in front of the fire listening to the party below, the laughter and the music.

He never thought that he could find such peace in such little things: In the possessive weight of Castiel's hand; the mint and onion taste that lingers on Castiel's breath; the unrestrained joy of laughter that hangs in the air; the way a fire licks and curls and the softened water of the bath.

Dean knows that outside this place, this house, that this would never be possible. Outside this place, this house, there are responsibilities, there is a war; an apocalypse. Yet here there is only the want and slow implacable passage of time that goes nowhere.

It hadn't always been like this.

***

Dean has been here well over three days now. Three days of searching the woods and the house but he can find nothing. The woods bring him back to the house. The house has no doors that lead outside the compound.

Castiel is baffled, he can't leave and is forced to such human tasks as eating and visiting the bathroom, a thing which terrified him the first time it happened. The flicker from the lamp catches the curtains easily, the lace consumed like spider webs in a whoosh. The silk on the walls takes the flame and carries it.

Dean doesn't say anything to the other residents of the house, he just sits on the lawn to watch the house burn.

For a few hours it burns merrily then it just goes out, as if it had never been on fire at all.

"It's not a choice," Pearl says, handing him wine, "we are trapped here, if you find a way, let us know, we've been here so long." She's looking at the sky, still angry from the fire, "nothing changes here, the house provides."

"I," Dean starts, he looks at Castiel. Pearl sees the hunger, the want and the blank terror in his gaze and lowers her eyes from the angel, she looks at her wine, at the trees, anywhere but him.

"No one has ever found a way out." Pearl says and then sighs, rolling her wine around the glass, "but we've all tried. Dying doesn't work either, we don't age, we don't get sick and we don't die, it's the boredom though, that really gets to you." Her legs are spread out on the grass, the wine in her glass as dark as tar. "There's no repercussions here."

"The world's ending," Dean says.

"And if it does?" Pearl asks and Dean doesn't have an answer for that. So he says nothing.

***  
Bobby knows a Shaman, of course no where near they are. It's the best part of a day's drive and Sam can't help but feel leaving the Impala, sharing the truck with Bobby, is the same as forsaking Dean, even if they're trying to save him, even if the Motel Room remains booked just in case, even if Sam daren't let the battery on his cell run dry.

He doesn't look like a Shaman, not even like a hunter, truth be told. Sam expects some old Native American, long black hair held back by a leather thong and a teepee in the garden. He does live in a reservation town, and he is native american, or south american, Sam's not sure. The shaman's face is all smooth desert plains and large black eyes. His hair is cropped close to his head and he is covered in piercings and tattoos. He is wearing a biker-looking do-rag and stirring a pot of chili big enough to boil a person in. "Fairies," he says, "fuck man, I think I'd rather piss off an angry t-rex, less messy," he stirs the chili, thinking, once, twice, a third time. "Only thing I can think of, Bobby," he completely ignores Sam, "is to summon Coyote, and ya' might be better off leaving him there."

"How?" Sam asks.

The Shaman appraises Sam, looks him up and down as he clacks the ball in his tongue against his teeth in thought. "Nah, he'd eat you alive."

"And you'd be any better?" Sam can't help but goad him, this man is all that's stopping him from saving Dean.

"Hell, no," the shaman agrees, "but I got the sense my ma kicked into me, and know when to poke a hornet's nest and when to stay well clear. Summoning Coyote is hard, hulk-man, the first of the rituals can kill you."

"I have taken down demons and angels."

If the shaman is impressed by this he certainly doesn't show it. "Look, sure you're big and strong and maybe you've taken on some Windwalkers and some of the Black eyed but Coyote's."

"Gods too." Sam doesn't need to brag, it's true after all. "and they've got my brother."

"Two weeks," the shaman says, "it'll take two weeks to get you ready for the first of the ceremonies, and then once you've done that, you're on your own. The last means walking out into that," he gestures to the wide expanse of Nevada beyond the window of the small house, "naked and alone with the sun at your back for three days, with no water or food. And even if you survive all that, and it's not an easy thing, if you survive he might not appear." He pulls the wooden spoon from the big pot and slaps it twice against the side to shake off the remaining sauce. "I'd be sending ya' to ya' death."

Sam takes a deep breath. "I'll do it," he says because he knows Dean would do it for him in a heartbeat.

"Two weeks, Banner," the shaman says again mocking Sam's size, "come back in the morning, I've got a shindig to feed."

***

The den of Coyote is a small adobe hut that looks centuries out of place to Sam, even if his eyes are dry and dusty. It is a small block on the landscape outside of which a fire burns. He remembers the words of the shaman, "the house will appear from nowhere, it is the first sign that you have been accepted. Outside there will be a fire and water. Drink your fill and then wash, make sure you remove all the dust from your skin and then dry yourself by the fire, if he wants to he will come to you there. If he does not come, then wait in the doorway. If he has not come by morning he will not."

The water is cold and burns Sam's throat at first, but he greedily swallows it down, feeling his tongue almost expand in the cool and wet, then standing on the small mat he begins to wash himself.

He had not realised how much dust had found it's way into his skin, into the creases and the places where the sweat had dried up. It feels wonderful to wash, even if the water is icy, he dunks his head once, twice a third time, and feels invigorated. This is a god's place, he knows, and the water is divine.

When he is dry he sees a small carpet by the door of the hut, between the door and the fire, and sits, prepared to wait.

He watches the fire, it prickles on the fresh skin, rubbed raw by the dust and cold water. "You are brave to come here, Hunter, I should kill you where you sit." The voice sounds like a growl, low and deep but there is no face to it.

"I need your help." Sam says, his eyes scanning the darkness for the figure.

"And what do you bring me?" Coyote asks, his voice to the left now where it had been to the right.

"I bring myself." Sam says, the shaman hadn't mentioned bringing a tribute.

Coyote laughs, a hacking sound in the darkness. "I am not the Lightbringer to care for such. You want my aid, why?"

"My brother is trapped," Sam finds the words easy, "there is a place, in Louisiana where time is halted and he is stuck there. I want to set him free."

"Why?"Coyote is relentless in his questions.

"He went to Hell for me." Sam answers.

"and?"

"He'd do the same for me."

"And?"

Sam is quiet for a long moment, "I love him. He is my brother."

Coyote snorts in the darkness. "You always amuse me, hunters, there is no shame in love, only in dishonesty. You cannot say that you came here, that you suffered because you loved him, only out of a sense of," with a thud Coyote lands in the firelight, a tall muscled man with a sense of wildness about him, "responsibility."

Coyote is handsome in a wild, virile, way. He looks as if he might at any moment reach up and rip away his face to reveal the animal underneath. Sam knows Dean would say he looks like Wolverine, but Sam's not his brother. Coyote has salt and pepper black hair and dark, hard black eyes. His teeth however are sharp and white.

"You came here and offer me yourself," Coyote says with a smirk and sits down on the carpet next to Sam, he runs his hand, with black hard claws instead of nails, "so I will give you a choice, you can go from this place and it will be as it was, but your brother will remain trapped. This is the clever option."

"Or," Sam wants to jump out of his skin, which is crawling at the Coyote's touch but he stays firm.

"I can remove the demon blood from you, that is the least of my powers and you can return human, less than you are, but able to have the normal life you have convinced yourself is impossible."

Sam's mouth waters and Coyote sees it. "Or I can give you the kiss of death that you might carry it into that place. Death alone can undo the spell, but if I do this, then know you will not be able to speak until the kiss is given, and those inside may never forgive you for what you take, even your beloved brother."

Coyote snickers in the darkness. "There is food in the house," he says, "take your fill, and I will return in the morning for your decision."

It wasn't always like this.

***

The first thing Sam notices about the Maison de Soleil Levant is that in this pocket universe that it is no longer crooked. It is festooned with flowers and girls in skimpy dresses are playing a game of tag on the grass in front of it. They are wearing thin cotton that highlights thier figures rather than conceal it.

One of them shines just a little brighter than the others, she has cafe au lait skin and loose black curls.

Dean sits on the veranda watching them, Castiel beside him. There are men in the house, Sam can see them as they pass by the windows.

He nods at Dean who looks tired and sad, but also healthy. Castiel is reading to him from some book in his knee but Dean isn't listening.

Sam walks up to the girl with the cafe au lait skin, but his eyes are on his brother. She smiles at him and then nods once, as if she understands what he brings here. She kisses him.

Later, when the house has fallen back into it's basements, when the sticky mess of the women has melted into the grass, their bones turning to liquid and dust the sun sets and Castiel, still holding the book, looks at Dean and sighs. Dean just drops his hand, "what kept you?" he asks.

It had always been like this


End file.
